Pages

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Most of us dream of having the life of a movie star: the wealth, the fame, the adoration. One can even argue that it is the quintessential embodiment of the American Dream. But what if you attain that life, only to find that it is not so much the American Dream as a “Waking Dream”-- an unreal and foggy existence that only pulls you farther from yourself? That’s what happens to Elliot Adrian, the “star” of award-winning novelist Michael Loyd Gray’s latest book, Not Famous Anymore.

Movie star Elliott Adrian’s days are a whirlwind of parties, booze, and luxury. The problem is, none of it means anything to him. His outwardly perfect life is really just a prison, and although he cannot see the gilded bars, something deep within him knows he must escape before it kills him. Deciding he doesn’t want to be famous anymore, he disappears from Hollywood and begins working his way back to his hometown in rural Illinois.

In his travels, Elliott meets many people who lead—on the surface—rather unenviable lives: the cab driver, the solitary rancher, the man pouring cheap beer in a small-town dive. But as each experience unfolds, he learns that they are in fact much richer men than he. Imagine his surprise when he tries to buy their friendship; they are not only unimpressed, but almost seem to pity him. Through their kindness, honesty and quiet strength, he learns a most valuable lesson: that giving of yourself is the only real currency.

Not Famous Anymore is a social commentary, not only about the excesses of those living that Hollywood dream, but about everyone who aspires to live it without really understanding what it means. It is about the millions of people who follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter and watch every installment of the Real Housewives. But what makes this book so incredible is that is also about another America, filled with people who don’t care what Kutcher is doing. For these people, living the Dream means a different kind of abundance: nature, family, and the satisfaction of a hard day’s work. It is these people who help guide Elliott home.

Gray is not snubbing his nose at wealth or fame, but simply reminding us of a lesson often forgot: that material success, without direction and substance, can lead to an empty existence of moral decay and spiritual ruin. Ultimately, the book is about turning away from the distractions of our technology- obsessed world and looking inward to find our own truth. Elliott doesn’t check email, tweet or go on Facebook. He doesn’t even use the phone that much. He goes from living under a constant spotlight to living completely under the radar. It is only then that he discovers that underneath all the superficial junk, he is a man with enough character, courage and moxie to face his own demons, and slay them. And that is a lesson we would all do well to learn. To learn more about Michael Loyd Gray’s work, visit http://www.michaelloydgray.com/

Friday, August 24, 2012

1625. In the remote
village of Buckland, a mob chants of witchcraft and John Sandall and his
mother are running for their lives. Taking refuge among the trees of
Buccla's Wood, John's mother opens her book and begins to tell her son
of an ancient Feast kept in secret down the generations. But as the rich
dishes rise from the pages, the ground beneath them freezes. That
winter John's mother dies.

The Feast is John's legacy. Taken as
an orphan to Buckland Manor, the ancestral seat of Sir William
Fremantle, John is put to work in its vast subterranean kitchens, the
domain of Richard Scovell. Under the Master Cook's guidance, John climbs
from the squalor of the Scullery to the great house above. There Sir
William's headstrong daughter Lucretia defies her father by refusing to
eat.

John's task is to tempt the girl from her fast. But as a
bond forms between them, greater conflicts loom. The Civil War will
throw John and Lucretia together in a passionate struggle for survival
against the New Order's fanatical soldiers. Ancient legacies will pull
them apart. To keep all he holds most dear, John must realise his
mother's vision. He must serve the Feast.

An astounding work of
historical fiction, John Saturnall's Feast charts the course of one
man's life from steaming kitchens to illicit bedchambers, through
battlefields and ancient magical woods. Expertly weaving fact with myth,
Lawrence Norfolk creates a rich, complex and mesmerising story of
seventeenth-century life, love and war.

Lawrence Norfolk (born 1963) is a British novelist known for historical works with complex plots and intricate detail. His novels are also known for their unusually large vocabulary.

He was born in London but lived in Iraq until 1967 and then in the West Country of England. He read English at King's College London and graduated in 1986. He worked briefly as a teacher and later as a freelance writer for reference book publishers.

In 1992, he won the Somerset Maugham Award for his first novel, Lemprière's Dictionary, about events surrounding the publication, in 1788, of John Lemprière's Bibliotheca Classica on classical mythology and history.

His second novel, The Pope's Rhinoceros, is based on the history of an actual animal also known as Dürer's Rhinoceros. Themes in the work include the lost city of Vineta, the sack of Prato, and the Benin bronze-making culture on the river Niger.My Thoughts

Like The Dog Stars, I obtained this book through Netgalley, and the e-book expired before I had a chance to get my notes from it. So I have to try to do this review from memory without any of my notes, and my memory just ain't what it used to be!

John Saturnall is sent to Buckland Manor as a young orphan, in hopes that he will find work and a place where he can fit in, as it is his best chance for a decent life. John has a natural talent for smells and tastes. He can break the flavors down in their complexity, pulling them apart and identifying their individual parts. His talent reminded me of that of Moses in The Bells, except Moses' talent dealt with the sense of hearing and John's is that of taste and smell.

Given John's talent, he quickly finds his place in the kitchen of the manor, where he excels. His first day at the manor is marked by an eventful meeting with the daughter of the manor, and this begins a remarkable relationship that goes through the years.

This story has an almost fairytale feel to it. The descriptions of the food is fantastical (seeming almost unreal). The characters have lovely, quirky little names (which I noted, but have now lost), and a lyrical way of speaking.

My final word: Tragic and charming, and with delicious descriptions, this story was an absolute delight. It is bound to be one of my favorites of the year, and will be earning a place on my permanent library shelves!

I received a copy of this book to review through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

SynopsisAlready praised as "a
writing powerhouse" (USA Today) and "among the select group of novelists
who have invigorated the crime fiction arena with smart, innovative,
and exciting work" (George Pelecanos), New York Times bestseller Laura
Lippman is constantly sending reviewers back to their thesauruses in
search of new and greater accolades. Her brilliant stand-alone novel,
And When She Was Good, only reinforces the fact that she stands tall
among today's bestselling elite--including Kate Atkinson, Tana French,
Jodi Picoult, and Harlan Coben (who raves, "I love her books ") Based on
her acclaimed, multi-award-nominated short story Scratch a Woman, And
When She Was Good is the powerfully gripping, intensely emotional story
of a suburban madam, a convicted murderer whose sentence is about to be
overturned, and the child they will both do anything to keep. Lippman
has already won virtually every prize the mystery genre has to
offer--the Edgar(R), Anthony, Agatha, and Nero Wolfe Awards, to name but
a few. They'll now have to invent a few new awards just to keep up with
her.

Laura Lippman was a reporter for
twenty years, including twelve years at The (Baltimore) Sun. She began
writing novels while working fulltime and published seven books about
“accidental PI” Tess Monaghan before leaving daily journalism in 2001.
Her work has been awarded the Edgar ®, the Anthony, the Agatha, the
Shamus, the Nero Wolfe, Gumshoe and Barry awards. She also has been
nominated for other prizes in the crime fiction field, including the
Hammett and the Macavity. She was the first-ever recipient of the
Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence and the first genre writer
recognized as Author of the Year by the Maryland Library Association.

Ms. Lippman grew up in Baltimore and attended city schools through
ninth grade. After graduating from Wilde Lake High School in Columbia,
Md., Ms. Lippman attended Northwestern University’s Medill School of
Journalism. Her other newspaper jobs included the Waco Tribune-Herald
and the San Antonio Light.

Ms. Lippman returned to Baltimore in
1989 and has lived there since. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr.,
a Sun editorial writer who retired in 1995 but continues to freelance
for several newspapers, and Madeline Mabry Lippman, a former Baltimore
City school librarian. Her sister, Susan, is a local bookseller. Check out the author's websiteFollow the author on Facebook

My Thoughts

SUBURBAN MADAM DEAD IN APPARENT SUICIDEThe headline catches Heloise's eye as she waits in the always-long line at the Starbucks closest to her son's middle school.

This is the story of the life of a prostitute, but it is so much more than that. Heloise is one of those suburban "madams" that you read about in the papers from time to time. Her life as been kept "compartmentalized", as she thinks of it, and most people only see one side of her life. Either they know her as the successful madam who runs her business...well, like a business... or they know her as a lobbyist widow raising a son on her own. And ne'er the twain shall meet. The one knows nothing of the other, with very few exceptions in her life.

I liked the character Heloise later in life. I wasn't always the biggest fan of her in her younger years. But part of that may be because the character wasn't as fully developed in her younger years. It was more like brief flashbacks over the years, so there were always holes left in the story. After a turbulent childhood growing up poor in a small town with an abusive father and a bowed mother who has submitted to her life, the present-day portion of the story takes place when Heloise (formerly "Helen") is 37-years-old and living in suburbia.

As an adult, Heloise gives every appearance of being a woman in total control of her life. I say "appearance", because even she must admit later that none of us truly have control. There are just too many things outside of our control. Heloise is trying to do things as "right" as she can, given that she works in an industry deemed "wrong". This isn't just the story of a prostitute-- it is the story of a mother's love, and what a mother will do to protect her child. Growing with a mother who put
her abusive husband (well, sort of husband) in front of her daughter,
Heloise now puts her son a priority before everything else. Everything
she does is for him.

While Heloise circumvents oncoming middle-age and a son entering his teens, she reassesses her life and decides it is time to restructure and reinvent. But as she is breaking free from the ties that bind, danger and ghosts linger in the shadows. My final word: I enjoyed this book. It is my first Laura Lippman, and probably won't be my last. Engaging and just suspenseful enough to wonder where she's gonna go with a thread of the storyline, and containing so many elements of a story that I've had in my head for 20 years now, I found the story ultimately interesting, and Heloise a character for whom I could root.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for allowing me to be part of this tour:

I received a copy of this
book to review through TLC Book Tours and the publisher, in exchange for
my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and
the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while
reading this novel.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Mailbox Monday is now hosted monthly by a different blog. Here is the official blog of Mailbox Monday.Here's what I've received over the last few weeks:

Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World by Sabina BermanReceived from the publisher for reviewA transporting
and brilliant novel narrated by an unforgettable woman: Karen Nieto, an
autistic savant whose idiosyncrasies prove her greatest gifts

As intimate as it is profound, and as clear-eyed as it is warmhearted, Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World marks an extraordinary debut by the award-winning Mexican playwright, journalist, and poet Sabina Berman.

Karen
Nieto passed her earliest years as a feral child, left alone to wander
the vast beach property near her family's failing tuna cannery. But when
her aunt Isabelle comes to Mexico to take over the family business, she
discovers a real girl amidst the squalor. So begins a miraculous
journey for autistic savant Karen, who finds freedom not only in the
love and patient instruction of her aunt but eventually at the bottom of
the ocean swimming among the creatures of the sea. Despite how far
she's come, Karen remains defined by the things she can't do—until
her gifts with animals are finally put to good use at the family's
fishery. Her plan is brilliant: Consolation Tuna will be the first
humane tuna fishery on the planet. Greenpeace approves, fame and fortune
follow, and Karen is swept on a global journey that explores how we
live, what we eat, and how our lives can defy even our own wildest
expectations.

The searing,
riveting debut novel about young women coming of age in the military,
from one of the most promising literary talents of her generation Yael,
Avishag, and Lea grow up together in a tiny, dusty Israeli village,
attending a high school made up of caravan classrooms, passing notes to
each other to alleviate the universal boredom of teenage life. When they
are conscripted into the army, their lives change in unpredictable
ways, influencing the women they become and the friendship that they
struggle to sustain. Yael trains marksmen and flirts with boys. Avishag
stands guard, watching refugees throw themselves at barbed-wire fences.
Lea, posted at a checkpoint, imagines the stories behind the familiar
faces that pass by her day after day. They gossip about boys and whisper
of an ever more violent world just beyond view. They drill, constantly,
for a moment that may never come. They live inside that single, intense
second just before danger erupts. In a relentlessly energetic
voice marked by caustic humor and fierce intelligence, Shani Boianjiu
creates a heightened reality that recalls our most celebrated
chroniclers of war and the military, while capturing that unique time in
a young woman's life when a single moment can change everything.

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris BohjalianWon through the Bookreporter.comOver the course of his career, New York Times bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian has taken readers on a spectacular array of journeys. Midwives brought us to an isolated Vermont farmhouse on an icy winter’s night and a home birth gone tragically wrong. The Double Bind perfectly conjured the Roaring Twenties on Long Island—and a young social worker’s descent into madness. And Skeletons at the Feast chronicled the last six months of World War Two in Poland and Germany with nail-biting authenticity. As The Washington Post Book World has noted, Bohjalian writes “the sorts of books people stay awake all night to finish.”In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls,
he brings us on a very different kind of journey. This spellbinding
tale travels between Aleppo, Syria, in 1915 and Bronxville, New York, in
2012—a sweeping historical love story steeped in the author’s Armenian
heritage, making it his most personal novel to date.When Elizabeth
Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College,
a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the
Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and
she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to
deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide.
There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer
who has already lost his wife and infant daughter.

When Armen leaves
Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth
letters, and comes to realize that he has fallen in love with the
wealthy, young American woman who is so different from the wife he
lost.Flash forward to the present, where we meet Laura Petrosian, a
novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents’ ornate
Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed the “Ottoman Annex,” Laura has
never really given her Armenian heritage much thought. But when an old
friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura’s
grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a
journey back through her family’s history that reveals love, loss—and a
wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.

And received for review through Netgalley:

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam JohnsonAn epic novel and a thrilling literary discovery, The Orphan Master’s Son
follows a young man’s journey through the icy waters, dark tunnels, and
eerie spy chambers of the world’s most mysterious dictatorship, North
Korea.

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer
“stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs Long Tomorrows,
a work camp for orphans. There the boy is given his first taste of
power, picking which orphans eat first and which will be lent out for
manual labor. Recognized for his loyalty and keen instincts, Jun Do
comes to the attention of superiors in the state, rises in the ranks,
and starts on a road from which there will be no return.

Considering
himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do
becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules,
arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in
order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human
being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to
Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a
legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked
like.”

Part breathless thriller, part story of innocence lost, part story of romantic love, The Orphan Master’s Son
is also a riveting portrait of a world heretofore hidden from view: a
North Korea rife with hunger, corruption, and casual cruelty but also
camaraderie, stolen moments of beauty, and love. A towering literary
achievement, The Orphan Master’s Son ushers Adam Johnson into the small group of today’s greatest writers.

Everglades Patrol by Tom Shirley(figured I'd give this a try, since the Everglades are practically my backyard)

As law enforcement
officer and game manager for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish
Commission, Lt. Tom Shirley was the law in one of the last true
frontiers in the nation—the Florida Everglades.

In Everglades Patrol,
Shirley shares the stories from his beat—an ecosystem larger than the
state of Rhode Island. His vivid narrative includes dangerous tales of
hunting down rogue gladesmen and gators and airboat chases through the
wetlands in search of illegal hunters and moonshiners.

During his thirty-year career (1955–1985), Shirley saw the Glades go
from frontier wilderness to “ruination” at the hands of the Army Corps
of Engineers. He watched as dikes cut off the water flow and controlled
floods submerged islands that had supported man and animals for 3,000
years, killing much of the wildlife he was sworn to protect.

Wilderness by Lance WellerThirty years after the
Civil War's Battle of the Wilderness left him maimed, Abel Truman has
found his way to the edge of the continent, the rugged, majestic coast
of Washington State, where he lives alone in a driftwood shack with his
beloved dog. Wilderness is the story of Abel, now an old and ailing man,
and his heroic final journey over the snowbound Olympic Mountains. It's
a quest he has little hope of completing but still must undertake to
settle matters of the heart that predate even the horrors of the war.As
Abel makes his way into the foothills, the violence he endures at the
hands of two thugs who are after his dog is crosscut with his memories
of the horrors of the war, the friends he lost, and the savagery he took
part in and witnessed. And yet, darkness is cut by light, especially in
the people who have touched his life-from Jane Dao-Ming Poole, the
daughter of murdered Chinese immigrants, to Hypatia, an escaped slave
who nursed him back to life, and finally to the unbearable memory of the
wife and child he lost as a young man. Haunted by tragedy, loss, and
unspeakable brutality, Abel has somehow managed to hold on to his
humanity, finding way stations of kindness along his tortured and
ultimately redemptive path.In its contrasts of light and dark, wild and
tame, brutal and tender, and its attempts to reconcile a horrific war
with the great evil it ended, Wilderness tells not only the moving tale
of an unforgettable character, but a story about who we are as human
beings, a people, and a nation. Lance Weller's immensely impressive
debut immediately places him among our most talented writers.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

SynopsisIn Beatrice Prior's
dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each
dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the
honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the
peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every
year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will
devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between
staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have
both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During
the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames
herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out
the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical
tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with
devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must
determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with
a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life
she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from
everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she
discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her
seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help
her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

Paperback, 534 pagesPublished February 28th 2012 by Katherine Tegen Books (first published April 28th 2011)ISBN 0062024035 (ISBN13: 9780062024039)About the Authorfrom GoodreadsVeronica Roth is only 23, so
her bio will be short. She’s from a Chicago suburb. She studied creative
writing at Northwestern University, and wrote DIVERGENT (Katherine
Tegen Books, May 2011) and INSURGENT (May 2012). The third and final
book in The Divergent Trilogy, which doesn't have a title yet, will come
out in Fall 2013. In the meantime she will spend endless hours browsing
Wikipedia in her pajamas as she eats corn flakes. (Or some other kind
of bland breakfast cereal.)Check out the author's websiteFollow the author on TwitterMy ThoughtsBeatrice is an well brought up Abnegation girl. And, of course, it is assumed at the Choosing Ceremony that she will choose to remain in her Abnegation faction. However on the appointed day she shocks her family when she chooses to switch factions, leaving her family and everything she has ever known behind. Then begins a brutal initiation process which she doubts at times she will survive.I approached this book with relatively low expectations. In the past I would have had higher expectations (enjoying the dystopian bent as I do), but I've read enough YA now to know not to expect much.And I got pretty much what I expected. If I approach a book like this from the standpoint of a 40+ year-old woman who really loves quirky literary fiction and southern gothic, then a book like this can be a bit of a let down. Very simple characters. Superficial interactions. Straight-forward writing. Not the type of prose I've come to love.But if I approach it from the 17-year-old I once was, and try to simply lose myself in the "story", the plot, the fragmented city that once was Chicago, then I can see the appeal. In the beginning I found the book was a bit of a letdown, even though I was simply looking for a light read-- something a little mindless (I don't expect much more out of YA). But then I shifted my mind into that teen-mode and tried to be more superficial (not really hard for me-- I am a pretty superficial person in a lot of ways), and found that I could enjoy the story a bit. Tris (formerly Beatrice) didn't seem very realistic to me. On the one hand, she is portrayed as this very plain, non-extraordinary girl. Then she is portrayed as this extremely brave girl who is terrified of everything, and at the same time fearless. I felt as if she was all over the place. Perhaps this was because she was "divergent" and couldn't really be pigeon-holed, but she just didn't feel very real to me. Most of the other characters were very one-dimensional and didn't really have any impact on me. Other than Four, whom I actually liked, even though he also didn't make much sense to me, being kind and sensitive and cruel all at the same time.My final word: In the end, I was left with an "okay" story. It had its moments, and it had potential with an interesting premise, but it was too loosely executed and just didn't pull it all in together. I was left a little bored by the whole thing, but perhaps would have loved it at 17? So this one gets an "eh" and a shrug, and I'm not sure whether or not I will give Insurgent a try. Not right now. Too many great books to read!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

A riveting,
powerful debut novel from an award-winning adventure writer: the story
of a pilot surviving in a world filled with loss—and of what he is
willing to risk to rediscover, against all odds, connection, love, and
grace.Hig survived the flu that killed everyone he knows.
His wife is gone, his friends are dead, he lives in the hangar of a
small abandoned airport with his dog, his only neighbor a gun-toting
misanthrope. In his 1956 Cessna, Hig flies the perimeter of the airfield
or sneaks off to the mountains to fish and pretend that things are the
way they used to be. But when a random transmission somehow beams
through his radio, the voice ignites a hope deep inside him that a
better life—something like his old life—exists beyond the airport.
Risking everything, he flies past his point of no return—not enough fuel
to get him home—following the trail of the static-broken voice on the
radio. But what he encounters and what he must face—in the people he
meets, and in himself—is both better and worse than anything he could
have hoped for.

ebook, 336 pagesPublished August 7th 2012 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing GroupISBN 0307960935 (ISBN13: 9780307960931)About the Authorfrom the author's websitePeter Heller is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure.
He is an award winning adventure writer and the author of four books of
literary nonfiction. He lives in Denver. Heller was born and raised in
New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in
New Hampshire where he became an outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker. He
traveled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging
descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central
America and Peru.At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received an MFA
in fiction and poetry, he won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem
“The Psalms of Malvine.” He has worked as a dishwasher, construction
worker, logger, offshore fisherman, kayak instructor, river guide, and
world class pizza deliverer. Some of these stories can be found in Set Free in China, Sojourns on the Edge.
In the winter of 2002 he joined, on the ground team, the most ambitious
whitewater expedition in history as it made its way through the
treacherous Tsangpo Gorge in Eastern Tibet. He chronicled what has been
called The Last Great Adventure Prize for Outside, and in his book Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River.

The gorge — three times deeper than the Grand Canyon — is sacred to
Buddhists, and is the inspiration for James Hilton’s Shangri La. It is
so deep there are tigers and leopards in the bottom and raging 25,000
foot peaks at the top, and so remote and difficult to traverse that a
mythical waterfall, sought by explorers since Victorian times, was
documented for the first time in 1998 by a team from National Geographic.

The book won a starred review fromPublisher’s Weekly, was number three on Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” of all pop culture, and a Denver Post review ranked it “up there with any adventure writing ever written.”

In December, 2005, on assignment for National Geographic Adventure,
he joined the crew of an eco-pirate ship belonging to the radical
environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it sailed
to Antarctica to hunt down and disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet.

The ship is all black, sails under a jolly Roger, and two days south
of Tasmania the engineers came on deck and welded a big blade called the
Can Opener to the bow—a weapon designed to gut the hulls of ships. In The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals,
Heller recounts fierce gales, forty foot seas, rammings, near-sinkings,
and a committed crew’s clear-eyed willingness to die to save a whale.
The book was published by Simon and Schuster’s Free Press in September,
2007.

In the fall of 2007 Heller was invited by the team who made the acclaimed film The Cove
to accompany them in a clandestine filming mission into the guarded
dolphin-killing cove in Taiji, Japan. Heller paddled into the inlet
with four other surfers while a pod of pilot whales was being
slaughtered. He was outfitted with a helmet cam, and the terrible
footage can be seen in the movie. The Cove went on to win an Academy
Award. Heller wrote about the experience for Men’s Journal.

Heller’s most recent memoir, about surfing from California down the coast of Mexico, Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave,
was published by The Free Press in 2010. Can a man drop everything in
the middle of his life, pick up a surfboard and, apprenticing himself to
local masters, learn to ride a big, fast wave in six months? Can he
learn to finally love and commit to someone else? Can he care for the
oceans, which are in crisis? The answers are in. The book won a starred
review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called it a “powerful
memoir…about love: of a woman, of living, of the sea.” It also won the
National Outdoor Book Award for Literature.

Heller’s debut novel, The Dog Stars, will be published by
Knopf in August, 2012. It will also be published by Headline Review in
Great Britain and Australia, and Actes Sud in France.

Unfortunately this book was from Netgalley and it expired, and I
unthinkingly lost all of my notes when that happened. I'll know next
time to copy my notes out and to another location before the book
expires! So this time I have to try and do a brief review without any
notes to remind me.

Hig is a survivor of an epidemic, living with his dog and a nearby
neighbor on constant alert for danger by traveling scavengers. A pilot
who still takes periodic scouting flights, he is plagued by the memory
of a voice on his radio, calling to him from the Denver airport.

My memory is getting so bad as I get older that I can't even remember
the name of Hig's dog, and am not 100% positive that it was the Denver
airport that the voice came from. See? That's why I need my notes!

I loved this story. Part post-apocalyptic, part adventure story, this
book goes beyond the average post-apocalyptic. Where usually a story of
this genre would simply branch off into a good ol' horror yarn, this
story explores human nature and is a more "real" look at life after the
apocalypse rather than a fantastical look, albeit with a somewhat
desperate and negative bent, assuming the worst of human nature. Not
only a book about survival, but a story about the love between a man and
his dog.

Hig comes off as a pretty honorable man-- a man with a conscience and uncomfortable with some of the things he must do. His ornery neighbor is not so conflicted. He has absolutely no problem with living in the world they now struggle to survive in. In fact, you get the impression that he may be more comfortable in this post-apocalyptic world than the cushy world of the past.

My final word: If you like the post-apocalyptic genre, and appreciate
good writing, give this one a try. It is a fast read (Goodreads shows
the e-book at 336 pages, but my e-book was just over 200 pages. Blame it on the font size!),
well-written, with emotional moments. There is some brutality, but
nothing explicit or excessive. Bound to be one of my favorites of the year. Very nice!

My Rating: 9 out of 10

Disclosure:

I received this e-book through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The women of Freesia
Court are convinced that there is nothing good coffee, delectable
desserts, and a strong shoulder can’t fix. Laughter is the glue that
holds them together—the foundation of a book group they call AHEB (Angry
Housewives Eating Bon Bons), an unofficial “club” that becomes much
more. It becomes a lifeline. Holding on through forty eventful years,
there’s Faith, a lonely mother of twins who harbors a terrible secret
that has condemned her to living a lie; big, beautiful Audrey, the
resident sex queen who knows that with good posture and an attitude you
can get away with anything; Merit, the shy doctor’s wife with the face
of an angel and the private hell of an abusive husband; Kari, a wise
woman with a wonderful laugh who knows the greatest gifts appear after
life’s fiercest storms; and finally, Slip, a tiny spitfire of a woman
who isn’t afraid to look trouble straight in the eye.

This
stalwart group of friends depicts a special slice of American life, of
stay-at-home days and new careers, of children and grandchildren, of
bold beginnings and second chances, in which the power of forgiveness,
understanding, and the perfectly timed giggle fit is the CPR that mends
broken hearts and shattered dreams.

Paperback, 512 pagesPublished March 29th 2005 by Random House Publishing Group (first published January 1st 2003)ISBN 0345475690 (ISBN13: 9780345475695)

About the Authorfrom Goodreads

Lorna Landvik is a mother of
two and wife of one. She is the author of eight novels, including the
best-selling ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS, PATTY JANE'S HOUSE OF
CURL and OH MY STARS. Also an actor and playwright, Lorna has
appeared in many stage productions. She is a new and passionate
neophyte to the practice of yoga, which is a fine antidote to her long
established practice of lounging.

A Fuller Brush salesman had the unfortunate task of trying to sell his wares to the women of Freesia Court during the fifth day of a March cold snap.

This is the story of five women who form a book club, following the women over decades of friendship.

Faith is married to husband Wade, and with twins- a girl and a boy. Faith is grounded and sensible, but full of secrets and living a lie (or series of lies).

Audrey and husband Paul appear to have the perfect life. With two boys and an attentive husband, Audrey thinks that having a great sex life equates a good marriage. Later she becomes a person of more depth.

Merit is the beautiful daughter of a Lutheran minister. Most people don't see beyond her beauty, and assume that there is nothing more to her. But there is a lot going on in her life and with her husband Eric.

Slip is a fiery, fearless, opinionated activist, and her husband Jerry stands by her in everything.

Kari is a widow, her husband Bjorn having died in his forties, before they had any children. She is a seamstress, home designer and a favorite of her nieces and nephews. There is something stabilizing and grounded about Kari.

There’s something about Kari that makes me feel calm-- after listening to her I feel like I’ve drunk a warm glass of milk. (p. 48)

This story is character-driven, with full, well-fleshed out characters. But that is not to say that the plot plays second-fiddle. This story is equally plot and character driven, and it covers the gamut. Childhood heartbreak, unhappy marriages, domestic abuse, substance abuse, the horrors of war, the pain and joys of parenthood. It has it all.

My biggest issue was with Faith's letters. Faith writes regular letters to her deceased mother throughout the book, and these letters became my least favorite part of the story. Accusatory, bitter, morose, they dwell on the past, and Faith doesn't seem to appreciate how lucky she is to have what she has.

You never know what little tidbits of knowledge you'll pick up at a book club discussion. I can't remember of which topic from the book we were discussing, but one woman said that someone she knew had five miscarriages. The doctor told her to drink a beer every day with the next pregnancy, as it suppresses contractions, and she carried that baby to term!

Someone in the book club also pointed out that more time was given to developing the gay couple than in addressing the divorce of one of the characters, and how she got the strength to follow through with it. I have to say that I agree. The gay couple weren't really integral to the story and never really tied in with the storyline. They felt "superfluous", as if they were the "token gay couple" in the story. So one of my main complaints with the book is that too much time was spent on inconsequential things and people that didn't really add to the story.

But I did enjoy the writing, and some of the stories the characters would tell. At one point, one of the characters relayed a discussion with a professor, and I enjoyed the analogy...

“...And then there’s Professor Emory-- he teaches the theology class I’m taking at night school-- because one day he compared religions to a baseball team, with Catholicism as the catcher, crouched down and willing to take the most punishment, giving secret signals; Baptists as the umpires, always judging who’d erred; Buddhism as the pinch hitter, who would hit a home run if he can just get up to bat, but if he only gets to warm the bench, that’s fine too...” (p. 117)

My final word: I enjoyed this book. Our book club had mixed responses to it. Many gave it about a C. I gave it a B+. It had both serious moments and humorous moments, allowing you to watch the development of the character's lives over decades. I would recommend this one.